Dhaka (IANS) : Major problems confronting Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in Bangladesh, home to the country’s Buddhist tribals, remain unresolved ten years after a peace treaty led to their surrender.
Ethnic minority leaders in general have blamed it on lack of political will by successive governments, who have shied away from granting autonomy to councils, envisaged and formed under the treaty.
Their major demands as laid out in the CHT peace treaty of 1997, which ended guerrilla warfare of 22 years, have not been met, New Age newspaper said Sunday.
Occasional violence between rival factions of the minority organisations has also continued.
The expected results of the treaty such as tranquillity and development remained elusive, the newspaper noted in a report marking ten years of the treaty signed on Dec 2, 1997.
The issue of settlement of land disputes in the hilly region, a major component of the agreement, has gone unattended as the land commission assigned with the job could not even start functioning despite extension to its tenure for two times.
There is now no commission as such after its expiry on Oct 31, 2007 and a proposal for the reconstitution of the commission has been pending with the law ministry, the officials concerned said.
Bangladesh’s hilly and most picturesque and mineral-rich region became part of the then East Pakistan, even though it had a Buddhist majority.
Historical records say that Sir Radcliff, who determined India’s partition on Hindu-Muslim lines in 1947 decided that CHT should go to Pakistan as River Karnaphuli, that flows through it, is the source of water for Chittagong port. The Congress-led government in India did not press its claim.
A high official of the CHT affairs ministry claimed the government had handed over to the regional council 19 out of the 33 divisions to make the council autonomous. The minority leaders, however, termed these “minor issues”.
“The implementation of the peace treaty has come to a standstill for lack of will of political governments,” said Moni Swapan Dewan, a former deputy minister in the government of Khaleda Zia (2001-2006).
Dewan wanted the current interim government to show “more enthusiasm and sincerity” in implementing the treaty.
As a minister representing interests of the Buddhist tribals, Dewan had faced difficulties and pressure from colleagues and bureaucrats in carrying forward any move related to the implementation of the treaty.
Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League-led government had signed the peace treaty with the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti (PCJSS), the political umbrella of the armed Shanti Bahini, Dec 2, 1997.
The guerrillas, led by PCJSS leader Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma, also known as Santu Larma, put down their arms in a ceremony on Feb 10, 1998.
A PCJSS faction and the Hill Women’s Federation opposed the treaty and termed it betrayal of the cause of the hill people.
The Bangladeshi Nationalist Party, then in opposition in parliament, opposed it too, but did not rescind it after it took office in October 2001.
As per the treaty, the government constituted the CHT Hill Regional Council, headquartered in Rangamati, with Santu Larma as chairman. Three district councils in Rangamati, Khagrachari and Bandarban were also formed.
“The councils have been on paper. There is no autonomy for the councils as stipulated in the treaty. They could not be functional for lack of coordination between the councils and the ministry concerned,” said a Jana Sanghati Samiti leader.
Foreign affairs adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, who is in-charge of the CHT affairs ministry, declined to comment on the issue.
The tribal people feel they are yet to see the expected level of development.
“There were a number of donor-driven development projects after the signing of the agreement. We have seen everything but development,” Pranab Dewan, a trader in Rangamati, said.